


Summer Squall

by Jaydee_Faire



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Auguste Has Freckles, Incest, Lemons, M/M, Not That Kind of Lemon, Past Underage, That Makes Everything Better Right, Underage - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 18:25:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7475097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaydee_Faire/pseuds/Jaydee_Faire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While trying to comfort Nicaise during a thunderstorm, Laurent remembers summers at Aquitart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Squall

**Author's Note:**

> There is no explicit sex in this fic, but underage sex and incest are heavily implied. "Louis" is the name I gave to the Regent. A "citron" is what a lemon was before we used selective breeding to make it a lemon (and also means "lemon" in French). Fireflies are gross.

"Laurent?"

It was dark; the clouds had blotted out all light from the stars. The last roll of thunder was still grumbling off into the distance. Laurent had been sitting by the window, enjoying the cool breeze against his face, even if it was the same breeze that was pushing an angry storm over the horizon. 

It promised to be a nasty one: Aquitart was famous for its summer thunderstorms, and the air had been thick with the promise of this one all day. Another breeze swept through the window, tousling Laurent's hair. He could smell damp earth. He'd been sitting there for hours, lost in thought, watching the storm roll in and thinking of lazy, sticky summer afternoons filled with the hiss of cicadas and the sound of his brother's laughter.

"Laurent," Nicaise said again, and Laurent turned away from the window. He'd forgotten to light any candles; the boy was hardly more than a smudge of shadow in the darkness of his room. "I came to-- it's so dark in here. Why are you sitting so close to the window? Are you going to jump?" 

"I may yet," Laurent drawled, leaning back against the windowsill. "Did Uncle send you? What could he possibly want at this time of night?"

"Louis has a thousand better uses for me than to play page to someone like you," Nicaise sneered. "Sometimes I tell him stories. I'm quite good at describing things, maybe I'll stay to watch you be struck by lightning so I can relay the image to him in detail later." His usual taunts had a strange, brittle sound to them, his voice wavering on a knife's edge. "Do you think you'll split in half when it hits you, or will you burn up like a cinder?"

"Nicaise," Laurent sighed, "what do you _w--"_

He was cut off by a flash of white that turned night to day for an instant, illuminating the old plaster walls, the bowl of sliced fruit that Laurent had picked the pears out of, and Nicaise, arms wrapped around himself, shoulders hunched, eyes huge. Then they were plunged into darkness again. Three heartbeats of expectant silence passed before thunder crashed, loud enough to rattle the glass guards in the unlit oil lamps. Laurent felt rather than saw Nicaise cringe backwards, heard his sharp indrawn breath.

"I came to tell you that I hate this place and I hate you," Nicaise said, voice shaking. "And I hate the awful noise that the bugs here make and I hate the glowing lights in the fields at night and I hate-- I hate that smelly spice they keep putting the food, I've told them to stop and they won't, they don't care, even Louis doesn't-- _ahh!"_

Lightning had forked across the sky again. Laurent got to his feet, took four quick steps to Nicaise and had the boy in his arms when the thunder came, squeezed him tight while Nicaise gulped down air, breath coming ragged. 

He was dressed for bed, Laurent realized as Nicaise clung to him, in an elegantly cut little nightshirt whose round collar had slipped aside to bare one shoulder, the sleeves long and flowing, making him look like someone's doll. Yes, curly-haired and pink-cheeked, to be clutched close, stroked and petted, dragged along by one arm while he smiled and stared brightly off into nothing. 

Lightning flashed again. Nicaise made a strangled little noise of fear and Laurent held him closer for a moment before taking them both over to the bed. With the hangings closed, the lightning came in velvet-muffled pulses instead of painful flashes. Laurent lay down and Nicaise curled against him, shivering, eyes shut tight. 

"It won't last long," Laurent said as thunder rolled over them again. He could hear the patter of raindrops as they slapped against the stones in the courtyard. "These storms come down out of Vask, pick up steam as they move. The wind will push the clouds past us, down into Delfeur to rain on Akielons." He stroked his fingers through Nicaise's hair. "A bit of wind and a bit of rain and a bit of noise. But that's all. You're safe." 

They were his brother's words, and they felt awkward, hard and sour in his mouth like a bite of unripe fruit. Just a little squall, Auguste had murmured into Laurent's hair. Small and quick and fierce, like you. 

But the trembling tension in Nicaise's body had lessened somewhat, and so Laurent kept talking, about the bobbing lights in tall grass that had turned out to be beetles blinking messages to each other. So ethereal and graceful from afar, up close they were bumbling and ugly, and when as a boy he'd shrieked and slapped one from his arm, he'd found that it had left a smear of glowing fluid and he'd been at once fascinated and disgusted. He and Auguste had sat by the window on hot summer nights, talking and eating candied fruits. 

Auguste had peeled oranges and Laurent had eaten slices of sugared pears and then licked clean his sticky fingers. They'd dared each other to try the yellow citrons that the ambassador to Patras had brought from a vast open marketplace he'd visited at Bazal. Auguste had liked the smell, but had made an awful face at the shockingly sour taste. Laurent had liked the sourness, and had sucked pulpy juice from the fruit until his lips had bled. Later, their father had laughed at them and told them that the Akielons used the juice of the citrons as a spice, or to add a pleasant flavor to water, but didn't eat the pulp. Despite this, Laurent still craved the taste of it sometimes, though the price for even one of the tiny fruits was dear.

The storm lashed at the walls and spilled rain through the open window for nearly an hour before winging off toward the Southeast. Laurent knew they sometimes had cyclones at Ravenel and hoped Nicaise would never have to cower in the wine cellar waiting for one to pass, nor listen to the rattle of hail on the windows and wind wailing angrily in the corridors. He hoped Nicaise would never have to suffer as military a place as Ravenel at all.

As the sound of thunder grew fainter, Nicaise gently uncoiled himself from the frightened ball he'd curled into, and let himself relax into the curve of Laurent's body. Laurent pulled his fingers through Nicaise's curls once more, then let his hand rest on the boy's back. He was warm; Laurent told himself that the boy had fallen asleep and there was no sense in waking him.

"I don't hate you," Nicaise said quietly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't retract your hate just because I've been kind to you and shown you a bit of affection," Laurent said lightly. "Blind hatred is quite useful. Look at me, always busy with my little projects."

"He said he couldn't stand my blubbering and threw me out," Nicaise went on. "I told him I didn't like the noise, but he'd already... done with me. He didn't want me close to him."

Laurent was silent, keeping his mind away from memories as sour as citron.

"Did he do it to you?" Nicaise asked, lifting his head.

"Did he do what to me?" Laurent asked, hoping his tone would steer the boy away from this subject.

"Use you," Nicaise said softly. "And then push you away."

Laurent shifted on the bed. "The storm's passed," he pointed out.

Nicaise's voice was hardly a breath of a whisper when he said, "Please," and then, with his fingertips daring to trace the line of Laurent's jaw and then his mouth, "I don't want to go."

"I think you can guess how well I enjoy being used," Laurent said coldly.

"I thought," Nicaise said, "that when it happened to you, you would want someone who didn't push you away."

Laurent held himself very still; Nicaise leaned close to place a kiss at the corner of his mouth. Laurent made himself say, "I can't give you this." And when Nicaise opened his mouth to retort, he said, "and it isn't yours to take." He unwound his arms from around the boy, pushed a little gap between them. "Nor was it his."

"You gave it to someone else," Nicaise said, the words coming out ugly.

Auguste, still chuckling, remarking that Laurent's mouth still tasted of citron. Counting freckles on bare white skin. Laying out in the fields, watched only by fireflies and kissed by the cool breeze that promised a storm. 

Laurent said, "I chose to." 

"Did you?" Nicaise said, sitting up. "The same way I chose Louis, I suppose."

"That's not--"

"I'm going back to bed." Then, softly, "I hate this place."

Laurent waited until Nicaise had slammed the door before murmuring, "So do I."

**Author's Note:**

> I always end up writing angstfic when I'm feeling low, and this time I wanted to explore the relationships between Auguste and Laurent as well as Laurent and Nicaise specifically to piss off the people who keep writing angry posts about this series in the tumblr tag. EAT A BIG OL' DICK, HATERS


End file.
